Do rates of hospital admission for falls and hip fracture in elderly people vary by socio-economic status?

The interactions between municipal socioeconomic status and age on hip fracture risk

“…The same direction of this association was found in an Australian study [16], using a private health insurance as a proxy of higher SES and including population aged 65 years and over. In the Trend region (north of England) [7] a study using the Townsend deprivation index as a proxy of SES, found a significant inverse association in the risk of falls; although, no association between HF and deprivation was found [7] and this may be due to the low statistical power of the study [15] or because only individuals aged >74 years were included in the study (the association between SES and HF can be dependent of the age group). In the United States [31], in a community-dwelling of people aged ≥70 years and over there was a non-significant inverse association between HF and income.…”

“…The reasons for such geographical differences are not well understood but a plausible explanation is that such differences are associated with socioeconomic and environmental contexts [7]: geographical variations in diet, body height and weight, smoking, alcohol intake, physical activity and uptake of anti-osteoporosis medication [2] can be associated with HF incidence and may explain the geographical differences in the incidence rates.…”

“…For Australia [16], there was reduced risk for those with private health insurance compared to ones without. In the Trend region (UK) study, an increased risk of falls in areas of lower SES (for adults aged 75 years or over) was described but without significant association with HF [7]. Nevertheless, some inconsistencies do exists, for example the role of income or education in the risk of HF: there were different associations in different age groups, which might suggest an age interaction with SES [17].…”

“…In the Stockolm metropolitan area, a higher risk of HF was found in the elderly living in more affluent areas, corroborating these findings. [18] Better understanding of the relationship between HF and socioeconomic and environmental factors, and their interactions with age, can help in better targeting prevention measures of HF [7]. However, there is a gap in the scientific literature regarding this issue.…”

On-Line Fall Detection via Mobile Accelerometer Data

“…In recent literature [15,9,5] is reported that approximately 33% of elders over the age of 65 and 50% over the age of 85 experience a fall each year.…”